Sam Yulsman (b. 1990) is a composer and pianist whose music spans a wide range of idioms. Yulsman’s compositions have been performed in North and South America, Europe, and Asia by ensembles and soloists including Talea Ensemble, Ensemble Korea, the Sun Ra Arkestra, JACK Quartet, Séverine Ballon, String Noise, Distractfold, Wet Ink Ensemble, Mivos Quartet, Carnegie Hill Concerts Chamber Players, the New York New Music Ensemble, Julia den Boer, Jeonghyeon Joo, loadbang and Rage Thormbones. Collaborative works include Veiled Gazelle, a 2023 concert length work featuring works by Yulsman and Kevin Ramsay, Little Moments of Invisible Death, for two pianos and electronics composed and performed with Laure M. Hiendl, and Land Before Time III - a dance installation co-produced and directed with dancer Justin Cabrillos and poet Gabrielle DaCosta.
As a pianist he has collaborated closely with composers as an interpreter of new works, and with improvisers in contexts where the boundaries between composed and
improvised music are porous and easily traversed. Yulsman has performed and/or recorded in the United States and Europe with artists including Diego Espinosa, Alicia Hall Moran, Anna Webber, TJ Borden, Tim Berne, Ikue Mori, Marcela Lucatelli, StellanVeloce, Anaïs Maviel, Weston Olencki, Brandon Lopez, Bilian Voutchkova, Lester St. Louis, Chris Corsano, Bill Frisell and the Westerlies Brass Quartet, Ingrid Laubrock, Pheeroan akLaff, Joe Morris, Ryan Muncy, Carla Bozulich, Tyshawn Sorey, Peter Evans, Cyrus McGoldrick (aka The Raskol Khan), Gary Burton, CJ Camerieri, Art Lande, John Colpitts, Nicola Hein, Chris Heenan, and Mark Miller. Important recent performances as an improviser and interpreter include performances of Jessie Cox's Enter the Impossible with the Sun Ra Arkestra, Laura Cocks, eddy kwon, TJ Borden and String Noise at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music (NYC); Julius Eastman's Stay On It with the Experiential Orchestra at the Church of the Advent Hope (NYC); Anaïs Maviel's who is this ritual for and from at Roulette (NYC); Neo Hülckers Crackles at Y-E-S Collective's Y-E-S Fest in Berlin; and Brandon Lopez’s Alls Well That Ends at Issue Project Room (NYC).
In 2021Yulsman received a DMA in composition from Columbia University were he studied with George E. Lewis, Zosha di Castri and Georg Friedrich Haas. Recent honors and awards include a 2021 Charles S. Miller Award from Columbia University, a 2020 Fromm Commission, 2019 Prix Langage Musical from the Conservatoire Américain and a 2019 Copland House Cultivate Fellowship.